With potential implications for whether politics–and not consumer or business demand–determines which digital products are compatible to which platforms, Congress began holding hearings this week on whether Apple should be forced to make its popular digital music products workable on players other than iPod.
Consumer and business demand was the preference of Napster chief technology officer William Pence, who told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property that the market will drive such integration in proper time. “It does not seem prudent,” Pence told the subcommittee, “for government to pick a winner in the continuing marketplace battle between Apple . . . and its competitors.”
Apple itself sent no representative to the April 7 hearing, but Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who led the hearing, said interoperability concerned him “[because] consumers who bought legal copies of music from Real could not play them on an iPod.
“I suppose this is a good thing for Apple, but perhaps not for consumers,” Smith continued. “Apple was invited to testify today, but that they chose not to appear. Generally speaking, companies with 75 percent market share of any business, in this case the digital download market, need to step up to the plate when it comes to testifying on policy issues that impact their industry. Failure to do so is a mistake.”
Apple’s iTunes Music Store was the first successful legal pay-to-play music download site, but Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management limits iTunes buyers to playing their music on iPod devices, and does not let them play the music on players made by Microsoft or other companies.
At least one industry analyst, Yankee Group’s Mike Goodman, told reporters he wasn’t sure what Congress was trying to do in light of the explosive growth of the digital music market. “The marketplace is doing an effective job of determining what it wants to do,” Goodman said, in an apparent echo of Pence’s comments to the committee.
He accused Congress of overreaching with the subcommittee hearing, saying Apple’s 75 percent digital music market share has nothing to do with unfair barriers but everything to do with market preference. “Apple just happened to have built the better mousetrap,” he said.
At least one lawmaker concurred. Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) said during the hearing that consumers themselves would choose interoperability over closed platforms, and most likely without government’s help, especially if the digital music providers warn prospective buyers about what is or is not compatible and thus preserve their choices.
Smith also said the issue is critical to those who make the music. “Performers and songwriters are affected by the decisions made about how their music is made available,” he said. “Music that is made available on only one digital music service will limit the options for artists to earn royalties.”
